NASA To Use Aircraft To Help Improve Air Quality Monitoring

Receive the latest local updates in your inbox

Starting next week, aircraft will fly noticeably low over the Baltimore-Washington area.

NASA will be conducting a series of flights as part of a program designed to help improve how satellites monitor air quality, NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. James Crawford told WAMU's Pat Brogan. Some will fly as low as 1,000 feet over major roadways.

Crawford said traditionally most air quality measurements have been taken from the ground and only in a few locations.

"With that kind of information, it's easy to tell when we have poor conditions, but it's difficult to paint a complete picture of how those conditions play out across the area," he said.

NASA will fly two aircraft over the ground locations that are generally used to monitor air quality, set up by the Maryland Department of the Environment. One will fly at a lower altitude to sample the air around it, and the other will fly at a higher altitude to look at pollution below it. Crawford said flights at different altitudes will offer information about the pollution at the surface, "where it influences people," and the pollution that's higher in the atmosphere, which is currently difficult for satellites to monitor.

"Trying to distinguish between the two is a particular difficulty," he said.

By integrating satellites, Crawford said scientists could forecast poor air quality conditions. Satellite technology could also help scientists analyze where pollution comes from and then figure out how to mitigate it.

Crawford said this is the first deployment over an urban area, but NASA scientists have plans to do three more deployments over the next four years. Each site has pollution for distinct reasons.

The aircraft in the Baltimore-Washington experiment will only fly during the day. Test flights begin next week, but the entire project will last through the end of July.